So, the newest MCU film entry, Thunderbolts*, has dropped. I’ve been pretty sour on the MCU for a while now, with the one shining light in the dark being Guardians of the Galaxy 3. No Way Home and Deadpool & Wolverine have a lot of love from others, but for me, they were just enjoyable slop. Like, yeah, I popped off for Dafoe Goblin powerbombing Spidey like everyone else, but when you think about the film for a little bit afterwards, you realise it doesn’t really make a ton of sense. I enjoyed it! They weren’t terrible, unlike The Dark World or Age of Ultron, but I definitely wouldn’t watch them again outside of something like, say, a plane ride or a drunk night where I don’t wanna think much.
Having said all that, I was nervously excited for this movie. I really like MCU Bucky as a character, I love Florence Pugh and Sebastian Stan as actors, and while I wouldn’t say I’m a huge David Harbour fan, Red Guardian was one of the few enjoyable bits of Black Widow. There’s very few superheroes who are just losers! I was also excited for a redemption of the Taskmaster character, who had a terrible start, but seemed pretty easy to improve the writing for.
There was a lot that made me not want to be excited too, though. This had a lot of characters, some of whom were in a movie I doubt anyone had seen (Black Widow) and some of whom were in a movie from yonks ago that even I barely remembered much about. Like, obviously I remember Ghost’s powers, but didn’t she turn good? And the fact that they were using the Thunderbolts name for a team that seemed more Suicide Squad inspired, and didn’t even have Zemo in, I was worried. Nevertheless, I allowed myself to be excited. It had a cool poster! Most MCU films have terrible posters!
In the end, it blew away even my expectations. The introduction sequence, right off the bat, has an action sequence with minimal cuts, something that almost every MCU product gets trapped by, with the notable exception of Daredevil. It also kept the comedy and serious moments relatively well separated, another issue that plagues the MCU! Tony Stark gave sarcastic quips as a coping mechanism and people liked it, so the bad and middling MCU films are riddled with serious moment > joke, serious moment > joke. Not so here, and I was pretty impressed. I’m relatively up to date with the MCU, but my friend I saw it with wasn’t, and they said they felt it gave them a good rundown of who everyone was, so thumbs up for that.
Visually, the film also stood out from the MCU. Thunderbolts used a lot of practical effects, and physical sets, and it really helps. Brave New World in particular suffered from some pretty bad CGI moments, and I think a movie like this that’s mostly character driven, and relatively down to Earth gets more brought together by a focus on physical. The few things that were CGI, though, did look incredible. The main antagonist’s design and powers looked fantastic, very intimidating and unnerving.
Pretty much the entire cast gave a great performance, but I would like to give particular shoutouts to Lewis Pullman. Steven Yuen was considered for the role, and while I think he’s also a great actor and would’ve no doubt done a good job, I don’t think it would’ve been possible for anyone to do better than Pullman did. If he’d had a bad performance, it could’ve maybe left me feeling more down on the film with how central he was, but instead he ensured it all came together.
I don’t have a lot of big complaints, but there are a few little ones. The characters are definitely not treated equally, which is just how the movie goes, but I would’ve liked a little bit more love spread around. Also, the pacing towards the climax felt off. Ultimately, though, this was a great movie, and is definitely in contention for my favourite MCU movie. It’ll take some time to think about, since recency bias is a bitch, but I really did enjoy it.
4 out of 5 stars